The summer of 2010 have showered me with many blessings. I finally had the chance to revisit home and reunite with thy parents. Spent days having TV marathons and pigging out on every kind of junk food you can possibly think of. Got accepted to g, The GUIDON's online magazine once again. Shopping and having chickenwing+beer nights with high school friends were done in a regular basis. Experienced a rave for the first time and DJ Kaskade, the one responsible for making it an amazing experience, was pretty easy on the eyes ;)
Went to Singapore for the first time alone (more on that later), which later sparked into a remarkable plan with Aika (that too!). Had shisha sessions and insightful conversations with her. A Jakarta Girls reunion just happened recently with a spectacular bucket list in the making.
Suddenly I See
In the first part of summer, when being a coach potato was a daily routine, a little voice kept telling me to make it a worthwhile and meaningful summer. Yes, the fun's covered and it's great to be within the comforts of home once again but the fact is, I only have two more years left in college. Pretty soon we'll graduate and go linger outside the bubble of Ateneo. It's time to gain exposure and consider the potential career choices in the future.
An effective way to do this? Become an INTERN.
The path towards gaining an internship was a bit rocky at the start. At first, it was supposed to be in an advertising company but that led to nowhere. The second was for a PR firm in a prominent lifestyle & culture magazine, who scheduled for an interview. They told me everything was in place and that I was going to start the following day, but they backed out in the last minute because they eventually decided that a month's internship was too short.
Eventually, I had got accepted into not one, but two internship opportunities. Even though both were within the fields of journalism, they had very different career paths - one in a newspaper and the other on a teen magazine. Knowing that a chance like this doesn't come often, I decided to accept both of them and put my time management skills to the test.
Internship Numero Uno - The Jakarta Post
The Jakarta Post is the city's pioneering and largest English newspaper for 27 years. My family have always been loyal readers of the Jakarta Post and it was one of the first written materials that helped spark a curiosity in the world of journalism.
As of now, they assigned me to the Online section. The deputy webmaster, Pak Iwan, is an Ateneo graduate with masters in Journalism and a former scholar in Berkeley. He seems to be extremely passionate and knowledgeable about journalism and occasionally tells me amusing stories during his days in Ateneo and Berkeley.
I was assigned to copy-edit many of the latest articles that are published online. I also helped choose the newsworthy regional news stories from their newsfeed to be posted in the Headlines section.
Pak Iwan also asked me to help to create audio slideshows. Not only have I learned the basic techniques of picture, slide-show and audio editing, I also translated the text and written the review. I'll also accompany him on Monday to interview a shoemaker and probably help take photos.
Here's the link for the audio slideshow: Namin, fisherman in a polluted river.
Internship Numero Dos - HighEnd Teen Magazine
It is one of the first English magazines to be aimed for teenagers (both guys and girls) in the country. Originally targeted towards international students, it then branched out towards students in local schools who wanted to practice their English comprehensive skills. A relatively new magazine that's been on circulation since 2008.
Miss Eunice Kim, who is the current managing editor of the magazine, has been the one who helped me quite immensely. She's extremely friendly and always welcoming, so I'm glad that she was the one assigned to supervise me during the whole internship. Her expertise goes beyond editing for a magazine; she used to be a TV reporter in California.
So far, she's given the rundown of the publication cycle and allowed me to help edit the fashion layouting. Recently, I was able to participate in a brainstorming meeting with the other writers for the upcoming 'Tech' issue.
Three projects that I was assigned to:
1) Write for the Uni section - Every issue a student gets a chance to write a profile on their university and their experience studying abroad.
2) Develop strategies in creating 'buzz' online through their website and social-networking sites (Facebook and Twitter) - I also created a competitor analysis on the other teen magazines currently in the market. This one required a lot of researching and regularly scoping the competitors' FB and Twitter pages. A day was spent leafing through dozens of local teen magazines and analyzing their content and layout.
3) Write an article - There were some mini-assignments like helping out in their Top10 section and a section on fresh blogs and websites but Miss Eunice allowed to me to write my very own article! Details are not yet sure, since I need to work on a suitable angle for it.
The Art of Balancing
One disadvantage about all of this is that I won't be able to fully concentrate on one. I had to regularly coordinate the time schedules with both, sacrificing some opportunities like moving into another section that requires more writing in The Jakarta Post.
A typical lunch in a nearby cafe with the necessities (ancient laptop, magazines, newspaper, pad and a pen) I also realized that my time management skills are in dire need of readjusting. Waking up early in the morning is still a challenge. The record for the highest number of times I hit the snooze button is probably fifteen. It usually takes a combination of the first hit of cold water on my face in the shower and a cup of coffee to jolt my half-sleepy disposition.
I'm also convinced that the freaking traffic in Jakarta is getting uncontrollable. It seems like number of cars have quadrupled in over a year! From 8am to 10pm, the intertwining roads are jam-packed with cars, buses and motorcycles. That's one of the reasons why I have to wake up so darn early; the distance that normally requires 10-15 minutes will turn into an hour or two. Not only is it time-consuming, but it leaves a large hole in your wallet from the wasted gasoline.
TO BE CONTINUED (INSIGHTS)...
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